From publication DE 10 2004 053 917 B3 a sidewall of a vehicle for this is known. This sidewall of the motor vehicle comprises a sill running in a lower region and a roof frame region, wherein between the sill and the roof frame region pillars extend, wherein the sill, the pillars and the roof frame region are produced in one piece from a suitably large sheet metal blank.
This one-piece sidewall produced from a sheet metal blank has no reinforcement elements whatsoever, but is rather produced from a locally hardenable steel alloy so that it is possible, by way of a hot forming process, to initially produce the sidewall and subsequently partially harden the regions of the sidewall that are subjected to high loads in the event of a possible crash of the vehicle.
This sidewall structure has the disadvantage that extremely expensive hardenable steel sheet material has to be used for the structure of the sidewall. In addition to this, not only a simple pressing process is required, but the crash-threatened region has to be additionally subjected to a thermal hardening process afterwards, during which disadvantageously problems of distortion and/or deformation of the side part can occur. FIG. 3 shows a further conventional side structure 3 which practically consists of a thin metal sheet which forms the side part outer skin 10 and is subsequently equipped with a plurality of locally reinforcing safety elements 22 to 35 for example for a passenger car for the U.S. market in order to satisfy corresponding safety regulations.
This plurality of safety structure elements 22 to 35 has the disadvantage of expensive stockholding and expensive assembly during the installation of the plurality of safety structure element 22 to 25 in the side part outer skin 10. It has however the advantage that the side part outer skin 10 has a smooth and continuous surface since it can be produced from a single, thin metal plate with front pillar 5, center pillar 6, door openings 15 and 16 as well as rear fender region 9, roof frame region 13 and floor sill 14. The disadvantage is that through the plurality of the safety structure elements 22 to 35 the weight of this side structure 3 of a vehicle because of today's higher safety requirement has meanwhile increased significantly so that new concepts of cost and weight saving have to be developed.
At least one object of the invention is to overcome the disadvantages in the prior art and state a side structure of a vehicle that gets by with conventional cost-effective sheet metal qualities yet prevents a plurality of safety structure elements and preferably has no overall weight increase and makes possible a significant increase of the efficiency during production. In addition, other objects, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.